Italian
From record arrivals to the growth of short-term rentals, to the collapse of the resident population: the data show how Venice is changing and why its future will depend on the balance between tourism and daily life
Venice is a living paradox. It is one of the most beloved cities in the world, a destination for millions of visitors who every day walk through its narrow streets and bridges to be enchanted by its reflections on the water. At the same time, it is a city that is emptying, struggling to stay alive beyond the beauty it shows to tourists. To understand this paradox, we need to look at the data: the evolution of tourism, the explosion of short-term tourist rentals like Airbnb, and the drastic decline in the resident population. Three different phenomena, but closely linked to each other, which tell the deep transformation of Venice in recent decades. All the complete data come from the platform Italia in Numeri.
For most of the twentieth century, tourism was an important but still sustainable resource. In 1951, Venice welcomed just under 600,000 arrivals and 1.5 million overnight stays, numbers compatible with a city still populated and lived in. But in the 1960s, tourism became a mass phenomenon: in 1961 arrivals exceeded one million, and in 1971 they reached 1.6 million, with almost 5 million overnight stays.
The 1980s and 1990s confirmed Venice’s role as a global destination, although the first fluctuations began to appear. Then, with the new millennium, flows began to grow again vertiginously: in 2011 arrivals surpassed 4 million, in 2017 they reached 5 million, up to the record of 2019 with 5.5 million arrivals and almost 13 million overnight stays. The pandemic in 2020 caused a sudden collapse, but it was only a parenthesis: in 2024 the city recorded the highest level ever with almost 5.9 million arrivals and over 13.2 million overnight stays. In seventy years, Venice has multiplied its arrivals tenfold and its overnight stays ninefold. An exceptional tourism success, but also a pressure that affects the livability and social structure of the city.
Parallel to the growth of tourism, in recent years a phenomenon has exploded that has radically changed the way of living in the city: short-term tourist rentals, particularly through platforms like Airbnb. In 2025, there are over 7,600 active listings in Venice, which in reality come close to 8,250 hosts. And these are not just rooms: in 80% of cases we are talking about entire apartments, removed from the residential market. Each lodging is booked on average for 103 nights a year, with a rate of 205 euros per night and an average income approaching 18,000 euros per host. Faced with such high returns, many property owners have abandoned traditional rentals, making it increasingly difficult for residents to find a home at affordable prices. Moreover, 100% of the listings are registered as short-term rentals and over half of them require a minimum stay of one or two nights. The result is increasingly fast tourism, hit-and-run, which fills the streets but often leaves little to the city in terms of integration and daily life. In the meantime, entire neighborhoods are changing: local shops are closing, activities aimed at visitors are increasing, and the social fabric is weakening.
And while homes become tourist accommodations, the resident population continues to decrease. At the end of the 19th century, the historic center was still a lively and densely populated city: in 1871 it had almost 129,000 inhabitants, which with the islands rose to over 148,000. The historical peak came in 1951, with 315,000 residents in the entire Municipality, of which almost 175,000 in the historic center. Since then, a steady decline began: in 1971 residents in the center dropped to 108,000, in 1991 to 76,000, in 2001 to 65,000. In 2018 it fell below the symbolic threshold of 53,000, and today stable residents are fewer than 49,000. The islands follow the same fate, while the mainland (Mestre and Marghera) follows the opposite path: since the 1960s it has grown steadily, surpassing 200,000 inhabitants in the 1970s and stabilizing today around 177,000. Today, fewer than one in five Venetians live in the historic city. This is not just a numerical decline: it means schools closing, services disappearing, communities thinning out. Venice risks becoming a “showcase city,” beautiful but emptied of its daily life.
Today Venice finds itself at a crossroads. Tourism is an essential resource and cannot be demonized, but its uncontrolled growth, together with the explosion of short-term rentals, has created a fragile balance in which the city risks no longer being a place to live, but only to visit. The data clearly show how the three dynamics – tourist influx, short-term rentals, and depopulation – feed into each other. Understanding them is the first step toward imagining policies capable of bringing residents back, protecting quality of life, and building a sustainable model of hospitality.
Venice has always known how to reinvent itself throughout history. The challenge today is to ensure that it continues to be not only a wonder to admire, but also a city that is alive, inhabited, and livable.
